PROFILE

Star quality takes the tradition forward Photo: John Slavin @ designfolk.com

PIPING TODAY • 18 PROFILE KATHRYN TICKELL

HE bright-sounding bellows-blown KATHRYN TICKELL, Northumbrian bagpipes, with their robed to receive her Hon- Tparallel-bore, stopped-end chanters and keys-enhanced range, have a musical orary Doctorate from the voice that has been gathering growing inter- University of Northumbria est, not least from folk groups and session artists. last year… “One of Kath- They have a long history, surviving some- ryn’s most important and times precariously within a local playing enduring contributions is as community, but they also have changed with the times and, most recently, have been interna- a composer. Her work is root- tionally showcased on concert stages with fl air ed in the musical thinking and conviction by several star-quality perform- and practice of Northum- ers, the most popular and prominent of whom continues to be the musically radiant Kathryn berland, but it is also highly Derran Tickell, a piper and fi ddler with more innovative in harmony, in that 20 years of professional performance and rhythm and arrangement. 14 albums to her credit. In 1990, she formed the four-piece Kathryn Her music has been described Tickell Band and, with the band or with her as ‘a force for renewal, trans- brother, Peter, on fi ddle, or alone, has played forming traditional music all over Britain, and toured regularly in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. She from within the tradition’.” has performed in venues ranging from small Photo: University of Northumbria village halls to the Edinburgh Festival, Carnegie composer and conductor Sir Peter Maxwell of local musicians such as Willie Taylor, Will Hall, The South Bank Centre, The Barbican Davies, Master of the Queen’s Music: “in ad- Atkinson, Joe Hutton, Richard Moscrop, Billy and at the European Parliament, and worked miration and respect for her work in making Pigg and Tom Hunter. with performers like , The Boys her home county come alive with a re-awakened She grew up in the 1970s, attending schools of the Lough, and . awareness of its own musical heritage, and of variously in Tynemouth, North Shields and In 1997 Kathryn Tickell founded the Young inexhaustible developments and transforma- Newcastle but with a strengthening attachment Musicians’ Fund to help young people in the tions of its traditions.” to the rural community of Warksburn in west North East realise their musical potential. She In July 2007, she was awarded an Honorary where her parents’ families is a part-time lecturer on Bachelor of Music Doctorate by University of Northumbria for had farmed and shepherded. (Honours) in Folk and Traditional Music her “outstanding and inspirational achieve- “I think that, if I hadn’t been born into the programme at , and, since ments”. Said the citation for the award: “One family I was, I probably wouldn’t have ended 2002, has been the artistic director of Folkestra, of Kathryn’s most important and enduring up playing the pipes,” she said. “My mother’s Sage Gateshead’s youth folk ensemble, a project contributions is as a composer. Her work is maiden name is Kathleen Robson. Robson’s a to help develop the talent of young musicians, rooted in the musical thinking and practice of name that’s all over the Border region, and she aged 14-19. Northumberland, but it is also highly innova- has a very strong identity in the valley where she In 2005, Kathryn Tickell was named “Musi- tive in harmony, in rhythm and arrangement. was born and brought up: her family’s been in cian of the Year” at BBC Radio 2’s Folk Awards. Her music has been described as ‘a force for that valley for 600 years and is related to every- And, in October the following year, The Sage renewal, transforming traditional music from body. She has a very strong sense of history and Gateshead music centre was the venue for within the tradition’.” it’s in her family that the tradition lies. the premiere performance of Kettletoft Inn, Kathryn Tickell was introduced to the pipes “My dad’s family came from County a 20-minute work for Northumbrian pipes when she was nine years’ old. Her father, Mike Durham, miners coming up to work in the and ensemble that was written as a tribute to Tickell, was closely involved with a traditional Northumberland pits, then they got into Kathryn Tickell by the distinguished English music scene that respected an older generation shepherding and farming and joined the same

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community as my mum’s family. Coming in from the outside, they were more aware of the tradition. They were more performers, so my dad would be singing and doing recitations and my grand-dad would be doing the same and playing the violin and accordion — and the church organ — and any chance they got to perform, they’d be up there. “My mum’s lot would be sitting quietly at the back. But they had the tradition. “So I got tradition from one side and per- formance from the other, and that was a good combination.” Soon after Kathryn Tickell began learning the Northumbrian pipes, she joined the Nor- thumbrian Pipers Society. “There were a few pipers around when I started,” said Kathryn Tickell. “It felt like quite a big scene but then I was very small. “There weren’t very many young people playing at that time, though. There was me and a lad just a few years older than me, Chris Ormiston — a fantastic piper. And it was great for me to have Chris there. He was a bit better than me and always used to beat me in the competitions and that gave me reasons to practise more. And, for Chris, he knew there was someone else hot on his heels and I think it helped to push him on as well. It was useful for both of us, I think.” By the time she was 13, Kathryn Tickell had won all of the traditional open smallpipes competitions, and was also making a name as a fiddle player in the Shetland style she learned from the Shetland fiddle virtuoso Tom An- derson at Stirling University’s traditional folk Photo: Derek Maxwell summer school. “At Pipers’ Society meetings and events, you’d KATHRYN TICKELL in concert… “I sometimes meet old friends be encouraged to play the tunes with variations back home and I hear, ‘you young ‘uns, you play everything too fast that are a big part of the old Northumbrian apart from the slow ones and you play them too slow’. But it works piping repertoire: old tunes written before 1800 that used just the eight notes that were available in a concert setting. We do a lot of arrangement in the band and a before keys were put on the instrument. And lot of batting about of timings and harmonies. I’m not doing that as there’d be these tunes with loads of variations. That was really encouraged within the society a commercial thing. I’m doing it because it’s what I really enjoy; it and it was great; they’re fantastic tunes. appeals to me and I get excited by playing the music in that way.” “But, as well as the Pipers’ Society, I was very lucky because there’s a lot of traditional music it was a very different thing. They’d be playing that was really very important.” on my mother’s side of the family, including a much the same sort of music as the fiddlers. While her grandparents did not play the few pipers: not people who were going out and “When we went to a relative’s house, my dad pipes, Kathryn Tickell now wonders whether doing concerts but people who were more a part would always bring the conversation around to she did not under-rate their knowledge. “They of the tradition and playing quite a different traditions and tunes and songs. And if anyone were brought up listening to a lot of piping and repertoire from the Pipers’ Society. was in that house that maybe used to play the I only realised that a little too late to make the “They were more like what we’d call the fiddle years and years ago, he would make them best of it,” she said. ‘country pipers’, playing more dance tunes and get the fiddle out and have a tune with me, and “I’ve got this old recording that has about ten

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different pipers on it, all recorded in the 1940s “We do a lot of arrangement in the band and “Then I found a couple of other notes I and 1950s. I played it to my grand-dad Robson a lot of batting about of timings and harmonies. hadn’t had before and started writing all these and he named every single piper on it. I was I’m not doing that as a commercial thing. I’m tunes with these extra notes in them and amazed and asked him how did that. He said he doing it because it’s what I really enjoy; it ap- couldn’t go back to the Archie Dagg set… and just knew: ‘I’ve heard them; I know what they peals to me and I get excited by playing the that was it. So I went onto my Mike Nelson sound like’. He was saying things like, ‘that’ll music in that way. You do sometimes have to pipes which he very kindly gave me for my 21st be Diana’. And I’d ask, ‘who’s Diana?’, and that present the music slightly differently to people birthday, and I’ll never need another set.” was Diana Blackett-Ord, one of a number of who’ve never heard it, tell them a bit about the “I began to use the keys more. the Northumbrian gentry who’d got interested tunes and about backgrounds and make it come “Pipes have had keys for a long while. But in the pipes in the post-war years, and were alive for them. I remember there was a bit of a reaction at the playing and encouraging the tradition. He knew “If I am back home playing somewhere local time from other pipers: ‘What’s she doing? it was her ‘because her pipes always sounded and traditional, I do play differently.” What sort of pipes has she got?’ and I’d say different,’ he said, ‘they always sound low, she Keys were first added to the Northumbrian ‘I’ve got the same sort of pipes as you… in fact played tunes that sounded lower’. pipes 200 years ago, four at first. By 1860 mak- you’ve got more notes than me’. ‘Yeah,’ they’d “I know that Diana Blackett-Ord always ers were adding up to 17 keys. This gave players say, ‘but I don’t play tunes like that on mine.‘ liked tunes in D and specialised in playing the option of introducing more complicated The difference was that I was using a lot of the those — and my grand-dad picked all of the variations to the old airs, and enabled them to notes. Other people have the notes but choose old pipers out like that, without any doubt and play the popular fiddle music of the day. not to use them, or use them to play fiddle explained why. Even among the people who The instrument Kathryn Tickell now plays tunes on the pipes. didn’t play in those older generations, there was has 16 keys and four drones. “Andy May is one who can play fiddle tunes a very strong awareness of the music, the tunes, “You can have more keys than that if you on the pipes and they sound great but, to my the players and the differences between them. want,” she said. “You can have up to 21 but taste there are very few pipers who do it success- “I didn’t have proper piping lessons to start it’s only a little chanter and you’ve only got the fully. Because I play the fiddle, it’s easier for me. off with but, if ever I was doing something thumb of the right hand and the little finger of I choose to play the fiddle tunes on the fiddle wrong, somebody would come out of the the left hand to work all these keys. If you have and the pipe tunes on the pipes, but my reper- woodwork and correct things I was just mud- too many keys, you can’t make it flow. toire is kind of different on the two instruments dling along with. There were plenty of people “I think it can become a bit of a status thing and I was writing tunes for the pipes. there who would come and help if I needed it,” — ‘ooh I’ve got 21 keys on my chanter’ — and “I was having a ball with all these whacky she said. “I was very lucky to have had connec- there are pipe makers who are varying things tunes and all these extra notes I’d never had be- tions with that generation and that older part in other ways. I’ve seen people with regulators fore and, to be honest, some of those tunes don’t of the community, the old hill sheep farmers; on the Northumbrian pipes, I’ve seen drone stand up now. I was just getting excited with that’s where the tradition was in those days, in switches… they sound like a good idea, actu- these extra notes, but that’s fine, a stage you go the ‘out-by’ areas. And I’d come in at the right ally, but I’d never trust them to be fully in tune through, getting to know those notes and what time, when there were still some of the old when you switched them. So I don’t have all of to do with them. I still play some of those tunes, players left alive. the new optional extras but I do have a really but not very many of them,” she said. “I’ve watched them go, which has been very fantastic set of pipes. “Personally, I love the very traditional stuff; sad; they were my friends. And there are some “They were made by a man called Mike I also like battering about with it myself. But I people who are keeping up that way of playing. Nelson who lived in Cambridge, and they are wish that the people who are trying the different But the community is so different and, even if wonderful. They’re insured but they might as things could also have an awareness of the old you teach somebody to play in the same way as well not be because the money couldn’t buy me stuff… that would be my ideal. Joe Hutton, or the fiddle the same way as Willie another set of pipes out there that’s like them; “But, like I was saying with my tunes, I don’t Taylor, you can’t keep that going because you’re in fact there isn’t another set of pipes out there think you can do any harm because, if what you not playing it in the same situation. like them.” do isn’t good, the traditional world rejects it. “It’s really different today. You’re certainly “My bellows are from my original set of pipes So you’ll play these things but nobody else will not playing for the dancing as much. With made by Archie Dagg — a shepherd and fiddler, bother. So let people do whatever they want. If the band, we’re playing concerts in the south piper and pipe maker in Northumberland — a it’s good, it’ll stick and, if it isn’t, it’ll go.” of England to people who’ve never been to a bit of a character. I still have those bellows but Similarly, the instrument imposes its own proper dance. They have no idea of the context the Archie Dagg set had only nine extra notes. checks and balances, she said. of these tunes so what we do there is kind of dif- When Mike Nelson was mending the Archie “I think people are often attracted to the ferent; the speeds we’re playing at are different. Dagg set, he lent me a set of his pipes with some pipes not purely as a musical instrument,” she And I sometimes meet old friends back home extra keys to play with. said. “To play a slightly unusual instrument or and I hear, ‘you young ‘uns, you play everything “They had F-naturals. I’d never had F-natu- an instrument that has historical connotations, too fast apart from the slow ones and you play rals before and immediately I had access to quite that can feel a bit special. For some, though, the them too slow’. a lot of tunes I’d always wanted to play and music never kicks in, and they keep playing the “But it works in a concert setting. hadn’t been able. It was great. instrument because they are getting something

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completely different from it, the feeling of being things like that, there’ll be a pipes class, several graduates and students who were there in a in a small club with like-minded people, or the fiddle classes — there’s always hundreds of fid- professional capacity was quite impressive. I satisfaction of playing something that not many dlers — with guitar, voice and so on. was quietly proud. And entrant numbers were other people play. “It is tricky and it’s kind of a false situation up this year. “But you can hear the people who are play- to put all of these people together to play but “It’s a broad-ranging course,” she said. “We’re ing it because they think it’s a great instrument then you want to let them have the experience not just looking at music from Northumber- — they’re the ones I want to listen to. of playing with other people and different land, we look at what we call the ‘traditions of “Yes, I love to play Northumbrian music instruments. these islands’ and, in fact, beyond: we’ve had but, if you hear a great tune that’s not from “It’s exciting. it’s difficult and that’s the way tutors in from Scandinavia and places and it’s Northumberland, are you going to say ‘no, I’m things are going. It’s getting more ‘folksy’: ‘let’s an exciting course because it covers such a wide not going to play that’? No. You’re going to nick all get in a band and play together’… pipes, range of musicians and singers. it, and you’re going to play it. And that’s the fiddles, accordions, harps, everything. They “And sometimes little bands come together way it should be, love it. through that course that are not quite what “And, if you’re playing an instrument like the “But it’s not the easiest thing in the world you might expect; the players just gravitate Northumbrian pipes, some of the tunes aren’t with the pipes. They always do a ‘band’ class towards each other. So you might get one very going to work so well. So you have to modify and it’s always a bit of a nightmare when traditional band and another that’s completely them a bit, and that mediates things. You’ve you’re leading the band class and you’ve got way out. And we see a bit of cross-over because taken the tune from Scotland or from Sweden, two Northumbrian pipers in F and everybody we have other music degree courses in the or some classical piece but, by the time you’ve else has instruments that can play in G and university: there’s a popular music course, a made it work on the Northumbrian pipes, D and A. classical composition course, an electro-acoustic you’ve kind of put your own stamp on it.” “I play the pipes virtually full time, and I find stream… and some of the traditional music The Northumbrian pipes have increasingly it difficult to integrate without either stopping students have been experimenting with the free been taken into ensembles, and along with the the rest of the group from playing the tunes improvisation classes. growth of interest in the Northumbrian pipes they want to play, or stopping the pipers from “Very interestingly, we have a lad called Paul and of group workshops and other events that playing what they want to play. Or, when eve- Knox on the degree course at the moment who bring players together, there is a ready interest ryone else goes to A, just suggesting the pipers is actually moving towards a more traditional among pipers to play together. But the enthu- play along on the tambourine or something! Of piping style in this environment. I think he’s siasm has produced its frustrations and thrown course there are some people with G chanters, been exposed to all of these things and he’s up implications for the instrument. so that works, but I prefer the lower pitch F chosen to go the other way. He plays in what I “When I started, it was very hard to play pipes myself. have to call an ‘old fashioned’ style. That makes Northumbrian pipes together with other pipers “Although there are a lot more pipes around me sound like I’m disapproving, which I’m not. because you were never in the same pitch,” said that play at around about F, it’s still hard to get He plays beautifully, with a very nice, measured Kathryn Tickell. “If you could get two sets of pipes together. style and none of the flash stuff. pipes that could play together it was a miracle “Actually, the pipes do seem to want to play “That’s interesting for me because, in the and everybody was always battering on with just a little sharper than F. midst of all of these influences to do something their reeds. Then they kind of standardised “If I don’t play with the band for a while and new and different, he’s decided he loves the the pitch… well, they tried to standardize the play on my own, I find I’ve gone up in pitch: music the way it was and he’s going to play it as pitch. So most of it is now is kind of in F, but the pipes just naturally want to be at about well as he can. And I think the style he’s chosen a few of them stayed kind of in F-sharp, which F-and-a-quarter, which isn’t great when you’re works very well for him. is what we started off with. playing with other instruments.” “And I see others coming up who might “Pipe makers are aware that pipers now want Meanwhile, the Bachelor of Music (Hon- put the cat among the pigeons when they are to play together and that’s led to a lot of massed ours) in Folk and Traditional Music programme a little older. pipes happening at various events… people at Newcastle University, for which Kathryn “There’s a young girl called Jessica Lamb, getting together and enjoying playing with Tickell is a lecturer, has produced several years one of the most determined people I’ve ever harmonies: three-part harmonies are definitely of graduates. The course focuses on the tradi- met. She’s going to be very interesting to watch: coming in. You’ll get groups of pipers playing tions of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland she’s very, very good and she has that focus and together and there’ll be three parts going on, set in the context of Europe and the rest of determination to be the best. and it’s really nice,” she said. the world. “And there are others, younger again. I see “And we see mixed ensembles happening, “Graduates have taken up various jobs,” she them in the competitions and they look so and that can be tricky with pipes. said. “They’re not all going to be professional confident — they’re smiling at the audience “In the teaching environment, with the folk musicians but we’re sending out great teach- and they’re loving it, up there to win and enjoy and traditional music degree course at Newcas- ers, arts administrators, and some fantastic themselves, and to perform. tle University, for example, and at Folk Works, musicians. “Things shift, it’s always been that way, it which is the folk development agency in the “I was at the Sidmouth Folk Week in August always will be that way… and it’s interest- northeast of England, at summer schools and and seeing the number of Newcastle folk degree ing.” l

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